StrongVPN Review

$5.83/Month

StrongVPN is a VPN service provide virtual private network that allows you to hide your IP address and geographical location in order to give you unprecedented access to the internet with no content restrictions and great privacy. StrongVPN has a large number of servers in 47 cities in 24 countries worldwide, giving you a large coverage in terms of connection.

No matter where you are in the world you will still be able to connect to StrongVPN’s system. StrongVPN also has a number of other features that make it a decent software, including 24/7 customer care, 256-bit military encryption, a simple client, a money-back guarantee and a zero logs policy. Although StrongVPN is not considered to best VPN, it is still noted as a reliable system and all the features will be elaborated throughout the review.

Pricing and Packages

StrongVPN has a number of packages offered to the user starting off at a fairly expensive $5.83 for a 12 month subscription to their service. This is interesting considering that price points are the main deciding factor when it comes to the purchase decision, so having a higher price tag would indicate that StrongVPN has a number of large benefits. However, as you will see later, this is not the case. It should also be mentioned, like many other VPN services, StrongVPN does not differentiate between the price plans, meaning that you will get all the same features regardless of the plan you decide to go with. As with all VPN systems, the packages work in tiers and they get more expensive as you commit less and less to the provider. The StrongVPN has three different plans that vary in expense and commitment, ranging from their monthly plan, 3 month plan and yearly plans.

Their plans start off at their cheapest with the yearly plan, which still sits at a pricey $5.83 a month. The plans then begin to rise sharply, with the 3 month plan coming in at $8 and the monthly plan coming in at a whopping $10 which is one of the most expensive system prices I have seen. For a provider that has had a number of issues in the past regarding privacy and safety, it is strange to see such high prices.

Payment Options

Any good VPN network would and should offer a number of payment options as their primary objective is to keep you safe on the internet. If a VPN service is not offering adequate options, it can be exposing your details online when you are purchasing their products. A VPN needs to keep you safe on the internet and through offering a range of gateways they are achieving that goal.

StrongVPN has fairly good number of gateways that the customer can choose from. Obviously, Strong allows customers to pay with the standard debit/credit cards such as Visa, American Express and MasterCard, and they also allow payment via PayPal. PayPal is one of the safer options available to the casual user and allows customer to make disputes if they did not receive the product and if they believe they were scammed.

In addition to the fairly standard payment gateways, Strong also offers payments from Alipay and Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a joy to use as it is not connected with any of your personal information and therefore you cannot be traced and followed around the internet. Overall, the gateways available to Strong customers are decent.

Strong VPN Setup and User-Friendliness

StrongVPN was incredibly fast to setup taking about 5 minutes to complete. It was actually fairly difficult navigating around the customer dashboard as I personally found it quite disorganised. Once I had navigated to the tab which allowed me to download the software, I was given plenty of options to decide which system I wanted to install.

I chose Windows as that is the system I have running. The software then began to download and after following the installation process I was greeted with another screen where I had to enter my login details again. It should also be noted that StrongVPN did not require a system restart which is always beneficial and saves on the installation time.

The client was incredibly basic and I personally found that it lacked many features when compared to other VPN providers. Strong looks like an old-school computer tab and is not smart-looking whatsoever. The opening screen lets you choose your location through a dropdown box and also lets you choose your security protocol. The protocols that were available were PPTP, L2TP, SSTP and OpenVPN (TCP and UDP). The client will also display your current IP and has a number of other tabs to choose from.

The settings tab allows you to change a range of features but is not as advanced as other systems I have used. The tab displayed my account information and also allowed me to configure my security options where I was able to turn on the OpenVPN protocols. Personally I thought that the screen was quite advanced and may have confused a casual user. Even I didn’t know what everything meant! The settings also allowed you to see your personal logs, port list and licence.

Strong VPN also has client available for IOS and Android but they have had problems in the past.

Servers and Speeds

As previously mentioned, Strong VPN has a number of servers in 24 different countries, giving users a pretty good coverage when it comes to connection speeds. It is a VPN’s job to ensure that users from all over the world can have access to their VPN network allowing to bypass any content restrictions present in their country, such as China.

With the speed testing is was found that Strong VPN had some decent connection speeds when we were connecting to a UK servers, as well as various other servers around Europe. However, saying that, The Netherlands was a little disappointing with speeds below the desired average. One important factor that needs to be mentioned regarding the servers in Strong VPN is that they hate torrenting and file sharing. It has been noted that Strong VPN is very against the idea of P2P and has been harsh to users in the past, issuing copyright infringements and telling authorities about user activity. On the plus side, the servers are particularly good for China and for bypassing the great firewall.

Compatibility

StrongVPN is a decent system that is compatible with a range of devices, and can have up to 5 simultaneous connections from different devices. You can even run the VPN on a public computer if you have administration controls. It is essential that a VPN is available for multiple devices as we now live in a digital age where we are progressively using our phones more and more for internet searching. We need to be protected from malicious individuals on the move so VPNs need to provide protection on multiple devices. With StrongVPN, they offer a range of devices that you connect with, including Windows, Mac, IOS, Android and Linux.

Some devices requires the installation of third-party applications which is a bit of a pain but other than that they are relatively sound. What is also good is that StrongVPN offers the ability to install their software into routers so you can connect multiple devices all at the same time with minimal configuration. However, if you want to go the individual route, there are a number of decent tutorials available which should help with the installation process.

Customer Support

As with most VPN services, 24/7 care is provided. It is important that 24/7 care is provided because if anyone is experiencing problems with their connection and security, they need to be helped quickly to stop them getting prosecuted or banned for many different reasons, especially if they live in China where content restriction is high. StrongVPN has a ticket system, FAQ and a knowledgebase, but there was no sign of any live chat options which was quite disappointing.

Live chat makes the process a little bit quicker, but their ticket system was relatively fast so there was no complaints there. The support comes in a range of languages which may be helpful for some, but their knowledge base and FAQ was very detailed and may not be understandable from a casual user’s perspective. Despite this, customer support is something that StrongVPN is good with.

Privacy and Security

Security is one of the main components of any VPN service and it is imperative that VPN networks keep you safe and private when you are surfing the web. StrongVPN runs pretty tight security and offers a range of options in terms of protocols and encryption. The network allows uses to select from either PPTP, SSTP, L2TP, IPSec or OpenVPN, also IKEv2, which has a 256-bit military encryption which is standard among many VPN networks these days.

We advise that you use the OpenVPN protocol as this one is the safest and will provide you with good security. They also keep no logs but do store a number of personal data such as time, date and location of the VPN connection, duration and bandwidth for TOS, spam and crime. StrongVPN has been seen to be very shady about its security and in the past they used to urge customers to use PTPP which is still the worst protocol to use in terms of security. They has strong encryptions but based on the previous experience, they seem a little untrustworthy in terms of security and privacy.

Free-Trial and Refund Policy

When looking through StrongVPN’s website they unfortunately do not offer a free-trial which is disappointing as this would give them a unique edge above the competition and make it less risky to try out their software. They also offer a 5-day money back guarantee which allows you to claim your money back if you feel the VPN service is not for you.

Conclusion

StrongVPN is a decent network but it is nothing to jump out your seat for. The network has a number of good features including their refund policy and their customer service. StrongVPN offers users a 7-day money back guarantee and has very fast response times to questions, however, there are a number of issues regarding the network.

The server coverage is too small and is overshadowed by big brands like ExpressVPN and NordVPN, and they also have a very basic and cheap client. Furthermore, the client is not very compatible with other devices and StrongVPN is very shady about their privacy and security protection. With all the features combined, we do not so recommend their network to the top list.

9.1Total Score

In-depth & Unbiased StrongVPN Review

StrongVPN is an old VPN service offer US server with StrongDNS servers for Netflix streaming, Easy APP for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android but only few features offer.